Sunday 4 December 2011

Go nuts with Dormen. And fruity and... get all your Festive Flavour From Dormen

This Christmas, The Dormen Food Company has created two special festive fruit and nut blends to help get the holiday season off to a cracking start.

Seasonal Fruit, Nut & Chocolate brings together orange flavoured cranberries, golden raisins, whole sweet and sour cherries, baked cashew & almonds and rich creamy milk chocolate.

Seasonal Fruit & Nut offers sumptuous cinnamon flavoured cranberries, Chilean and crimson raisins, baked cashews, almonds and toasted hazelnuts.

Fran Campbell, Managing Director of The Dormen Food Company, comments: 'Our seasonal blends include a little bit of everyone's favourites and are the ideal snack for the whole family to enjoy. Nuts are an integral part of Christmas celebrations and these special editions offer the perfect festive treat.'

Get a taste of Cornwall to your Christmas table

Banbury's Cornish Turkeys certainly live the rural idyll, raised by three generations of the same farming family outside Padstow on the North Cornish Coast.

And this year for the first time Christmas diners across the land will get to savour the difference between these birds and their intensively reared relatives - via a new national delivery service from www.cornishfoodmarket.co.uk.

"We hand-rear free-range black and traditional white turkeys here at Trembleathe Farm and they grow for much longer than mass produced birds so they develop that lovely deep turkey flavour," says Richard Banbury whose parents Fernley and Nancy, wife Clare and little daughters Gracie Ann and Roseanna all play their part in the nurturing process.

"I think part of it is also that our natural environment is so clean and clear with fresh air off the Atlantic - we're remote from roads and noise and commercial activity and the birds are raised as they should be - stress free."

For nearly fifty years these turkeys have been enjoyed throughout Cornwall at Christmas time but now the Banbury family - like scores of the county's best food and drink producers - are working with the team at cornishfoodmarket.co.uk to spread not just the word but the reality of best Cornish fare to the nation at large.

"We launched our website a year ago, delivering online orders of all this fantastic produce to homes and businesses in Cornwall and parts of Devon," says Sean Williams, MD of cornishfoodmarket.co.uk and its parent company Westcountry Fruit Sales, which delivers wholesale to restaurants and caterers across the two counties.

"Now we're delivering further afield and the Banbury family's turkeys are a prime example of why we are almost evangelistic about the wonderful products we can supply.

"The big supermarkets have had it their own way for far too long and their deal for customers, communities and their suppliers leaves so much to be desired. We're showing how you can provide a better service all round, with the freshest and best products, but still great value for money."

Alongside the Cornish turkeys cornishfoodmarket.co.uk's online customers can order award-winning wines and ciders, beers and juices, cheeses and pickles, clotted cream, mincemeat, puds and even mistletoe - delivered to doorsteps across the country. Check out their Christmas offerings from the top Cornish producers at www.cornishfoodmarket.co.uk.


FACTFILE:
cornishfoodmarket.co.uk...... was officially launched at the Cornwall Food and Drink Festival 2010, for which it was key sponsor again in September this year. For latest news, to register and to offer product suggestions visit www.cornishfoodmarket.co.uk.

· more than 3000 products, including

· more than 100 top local producers

· more than 1000 other food and non-food grocery and household items

· deliveries across Cornwall and parts of south and west Devon FREE to customers, Monday to Friday, with a minimum order value of just £12.50.

· products include the freshest fruit and veg, organic and non-organic dairy products, fresh Cornish meat and locally landed fresh fish.

· prices that compete with the supermarkets across all categories every day.

· Users can create their own 'Favourites' list of products they frequently purchase and even create and edit their own 'standing orders' for the various weekly food purchases they require.

Westcountry Fruit Sales Ltd

· Family business Westcountry Fruit Sales Ltd was established in 1856 in Falmouth, Cornwall.

· Now has 20,000 sq ft Distribution Centre at Higher Argal, near Falmouth, with a second satellite depot occupying purpose built premises in St Austell.

· In 1999 it established The Essential Food Co to supply the professional catering trade with an expansive range of dairy products and ambient food and non-food products, to complement its range of fresh produce.

· Now the largest Cornish based specialist supplier of foods to the catering trade in Cornwall. See www.thegreengrocery.co.uk.

Hand-Made Australian Christmas Puddings From Pudding Lane


From an inherited prize-winning family recipe, Pudding Lane award-winning Christmas puddings are proudly hand-made in Australia with the finest quality fruit selected from Australia's pasturelands and well sourced fresh ingredients; fresh free range eggs, fresh butter, fresh breadcrumbs (crumbed by hand), flour, sugar from Australia's tropical north, spices and the finest brandy, matured in American Oak, from the world famous Barossa Valley wine region of South Australia.
Pudding Lane Christmas Fare:

(1) (2) (3)

(1) Classic Christmas - Australia's finest handmade prize-winning Christmas pudding
(2) Date & Toffee Log - a delicious sticky date texture with luxurious toffee
(3) Australian Macadamia Nuts and Barossa Valley Brandy - Organic Macadamia Nuts, finest matured in oak Bandy and some gourmet magic

Available to purchase from: www.porterfoods.co.uk

Food miles and the environment

'In Australia we talk about "paddock to plate", (field to fork) but the meaning is the same, no matter where in the world you are, most people want to know what food companies like Pudding Lane are doing to help and minimize their impact on the natural Environment.

Pudding Lane has a unique handmade method that has been unchanged for 100 years or more. Unlike most other pudding manufacturers, who ship all their many ingredients from the corners of the world, we use only locally sourced ingredients, and so, even though our puddings come from Australia, ours create far fewer food miles and energy waste than a pudding that is made in the UK.

We have based our reputation for quality on the "boiled-in-the-cloth" method. That is, we select the finest ingredients, local, combine these ingredients by hand, including fresh bread (from a local bakery that we hand-crumb) add the "wet-mix" of fresh butter, fresh Free Range eggs (hand cracked), Brandy and then hand-mix the mixture. This pudding mixture is then hand-weighed with spoons into lined boiling cloths. The cloths are actually "squares" of unbleached calico and are reused over and over to make many hundreds of puddings.

If the calico square develops a small hole, then we cut it down neatly to make another (smaller) size of pudding and so the process continues. The puddings are hand-tied with twine, then cooked (boiled) in (gas fired) "coppers" before being hung, again by hand, individually on a line to age and mature in advance for Christmas.

When the puddings have been hung and dried we then take them off the line, cut them out of the cloth, dress them in plain cotton fabric to sell and the only disposable part of our pudding making process is a short piece of cotton twine used to tie the pudding cloth up with prior to cooking. The puddings are packaged in cartons made from 100% recycled material and dispatched.

In this way, we do not use any automated processes, no production lines, no electric steam ovens (in fact we don't even have a conventional oven in our pudding kitchen), we do not use plastic basins, plastic bowls or moulds to shape the puddings, each and every pudding is different, only the same supreme moist taste is the same - but each and every pudding is unique!

Many people who know our method and also who visit our pudding kitchen are amazed at the level of detail, at the hand-made method, the hard work, but also that we can make many many tonnes of puddings every year - but each and every one, without ever changing the method and almost no machinery whatsoever, is made individually by hand.

These days however, we are less accidental in our philosophy of the environment. We have a practical commitment to community involvement and make sure that our ingredients are; fresh and local, that our method is maintained by our strict Haccp controls and that we just make traditional Christmas puddings in the old-fashioned (environmental) way.'

Ambrette Dreaming Of A White Vine Christmas

The Ambrette Restaurant at Rye announces Christmas menus
The Ambrette Restaurant at Rye recently opened the historic White Vine House, which holds 5 AA stars, has announced three Christmas menus.

Patron chef Dev Biswal, renowned for his deftly spiced fine Indian dining, has created three special Christmas menus for under £20, £30 and £40 per person. The Christmas menus, with vegetarian options, are available throughout December for a minimum of 6 people when ordered by the whole group.

The Christmas Feast menu comprises a 'Champagne Cocktail', Appetiser of the day, Delicate Fillet of Claresse, Soup of the Day, Breast of British Chicken, Grenita, and Exotic Rose Flavoured Vanilla Crème Brule, for just £19.99

The Christmas Party menus also features Breast of Gressingham Duck, with a pudding of Indian-style cardamom and Vanilla rice Dessert with Carpaccio of Gulab Jamun at £29.99.

The Christmas Extravaganza menu also has Crispy Pooris and Tenderloin of Pork, with Hand-Crafted Chocolate Silk with Home-made Ice Cream for £39.99.

Biswal's other restaurant, The Ambrette in the Old Town in Margate Indian Princess) in Margate has received wide national press recognition for his unique style. The approach has seen The Ambrette secure listings in the major restaurant guides including, Michelin and Good Food Guides and received numerous awards from TopTable, TripAdvisor, Visit Thanet and the Restaurant Show.

Double rooms at the White Vine House cost from £130 per person.

The Georgian Room seats 26, the Elizabethan Room 16, the and the Club Room 14 and the outside terrace a further 20 diners. Head chef: Deepak Surman.

Dev Biswal grew up in Calcutta. He trained at the Dubai Sheraton, before moving to London, aged 26 in 2003 for spells at Mangoes and Eriki. He became a partner in The Indian Princess in Margate in December 2006, becoming patron and rebranding it as The Ambrette in 2010

The White Vine Houseaccommodates 14 guests in 5 double rooms (one 4-poster), and a family room (sleeping four). Room rates from £130 to £180 a night including breakfast. Set on Rye's High Street, the Georgian frontage of the White Vine House belies its medieval heritage. Beneath the dining room lies a C13th cellar, complete with stone spiral staircase. Refurbished in 2005, the once grand home is now one of the country's premier bed and breakfast venues.

Each of the 6 guest rooms includes period furniture, contemporary en suites stocked with locally made organic toiletries, the latest in home entertainment technology. The original building was destroyed during one of the many French raids on the town during the 100 Years War. The Elizabethan Dining Room named for its exquisite and unique French oak panelling, which probably cost more than the original building, with each panel individually formed to fit the timber frame. The room is "signed" with a carpenter's mark visible just above the fireplace.

Weddings: Specialising in small intimate weddings the White Vine House is licensed for civil ceremonies.

Rye Bay Scallop Week: 25th February - 4th March 2012. A mainly restaurant-based event when the local delicacy is at its plumpest and most succulent. The festival features cookery schools, cooking and scallop shucking demos. The week culminates on the final day with the hotly contested 'What a Load of Scallops' race with competitors racing barrows of scallops, through the cobbled streets of Rye, to win the coveted wooden scallop plaque. www.ryebayscallops.co.uk

The Ambrette Restaurant at Rye

T: 01797 222 043 E: info@theambrette-rye.co.uk W: www.theambrette.co.uk

The White Vine House

T: 01797 224 748 E: info@whitevinehouse.co.uk W: www.whitevinehouse.co.uk

24 High Street, Rye, East Sussex TN31 7JF

Eddie Gilbert's £35 Christmas Menu

Ramsgate's award-winning Eddie Gilbert's seafood restaurant has announced its Christmas Menu.

The £35 menu, that includes a glass of mulled wine on arrival is available for lunch and dinner until 24th December, with no minimum numbers required.


STARTERS

Roasted honeyed parsnip soup, spicy croutons & parsnip crisps

Pan fried scallops, caramelised baby onions, crispy bacon lardons & a cranberry balsamic,
Cured & smoked venison salad with a chocolate & red wine glaze, soused vegetables & watercress, Thai fish & crab cake with an Oriental salad, coriander cress & a cucumber relish

A tian of King prawns, smoked salmon & salmon mousse, avocado with a dill & mustard emulsion

Peppered breast of wild wood pigeon, celeriac remoulade, Kentish cider jelly & chestnut oil


MAINS

Roasted monkfish tail marinated in red wine, pancetta, winter vegetables & lemon thyme dumplings
Grilled cod with a chestnut, parsley & garlic crust, creamed potato, green beans, seafood chowder
Pan fried fillet of sea bass, crab & mussel risotto, baby scallops, aromatic sauce Vierge
Poached delice of lemon sole Bercy stuffed with prawns & smoked salmon,spinach & crushed potatoes
Fillet of English beef, shredded sprouts with smoked bacon, beef dripping roasted potatoes,
shallot confit & a peppery port jus
Roasted duck breast, crispy leg confit, bubble & squeak, baby carrots & a black cherry,brandy & juniper sauce

DESSERTS
Christmas pudding "Arctic Roll", poached plums & eggnog sauce
Chocolate marquise with a warm spiced orange compote & a milk chocolate ice cream
A Platter of British & French Cheeses, served with biscuits, grapes & celery
Date, walnut & fig sticky toffee pudding, toffee sauce, vanilla ice cream
Kentish bramley apple & pear crumble tartlet with a stem ginger & advocaat ice cream

Crisp Mincemeat strudel with a cinnamon crème Anglaise

Coffee and Eddie Gilbert's selected teas


Bookings: T: 01843 852123

Eddie Gilbert's opening times: Monday to Saturday 11.30am - 2.30pm, 5.30pm - 9.30pm. Sunday 12.00am - 2.30pm.

Awards
Taste of Kent Award for 'Best Fish Retailer' - 2007 & 2010
Potato Council - National Chip Week Perfection Portion 2010 - Finalist
Kent Restaurant Awards 2009 - Best Newcomer
Pride of Thanet - Overall winner 2010
Thanet Times - In the 2011
Coast Magazine - Best Seaside Restaurant runner up 2010

Eddie Gilbert's, 32 King Street, Ramsgate CT11 8NT

T: 01843 852123 E: jonny@eddiegliberts.com W: www.eddiegilberts.com

Last Minute Christmas Shopping With Teddington Cheese

Panicking about your Christmas shopping? Not sure what to give? A 'cheesy gift' from Teddington Cheese is always welcome. What's more, you can order right up until Sunday 18 December for UK deliveries (Tuesday 13 December for international ones).

With over 140 different cheeses to choose from, many of which are British, Teddington Cheese is one of the UK's leading online cheese suppliers, and ships all over the UK and abroad. In addition, its two retail shops (in Teddington and Richmond upon Thames) serve the local south west London community and with Christmas being the busiest time of the year for the company, savvy locals place their order in advance online, for collection from their nearest store just before Christmas.

A range of hampers is available from just £28 to £140 or customers can design their own by making their choices online.

The website also has a selection of cheese accessories, ranging from camembert bakers to raclette grills and accessories and, of course, the classic cheese fondue set.

All cheese purchases are wrapped individually by hand in wax paper and supplied with a small tasting card detailing the type of milk, the flavour characteristics, the producer and other relevant information.

On the website, a series of symbols allows the customer to identify those which are made using different milks, pasteurised and unpasteurised.

Nearly a third of the cheeses stocked are made with vegetarian rennet, which can be identified clearly on the website by the green 'V'.

Pregnant women or anyone with concerns about eating unpasteurised cheese can identify them easily as they are clearly marked on the website.

And for the gift which can last all year, there is the Teddington Cheese Club where you can arrange for friends and family to receive a monthly selection of cheeses throughout the year. Each selection costs £38.50 including UK deliver and contains five or six cheeses (total weight approximately 1.5 kg). You can send just one monthly selection or one every month. The cheese will arrive in peak condition.

With seasonal assortments to mark dates like St George's or Father's Day there is a wide choice. Teddington Cheese sends the certificate of membership, confirming the selections chosen to the recipient (or the gift giver if they want to hand it over in person), together with a greeting card with your personal message on the date of your choice. They have the option of changing the delivery date of any cheese selection to take account of any holidays or other commitments.

For further information visit www.teddingtoncheese.co.uk

Best of beer writing honoured at beer writers’ banquet: Ben McFarland crowned as beer writer of the year

(l-r): Ben McFarland, Simon JenkinsBen McFarland was crowned Beer Writer of the Year at the British Guild of Beer Writers Annual Awards Dinner on 1st December.

The Beer Writer of the Year is chosen from one of seven category winners which seek to find the very best of beer writing and journalism in the UK.

As well as picking up the overall title, McFarland also won the Fuller’s ESB Award for Best Writing for the Beer & Pub Trade.

Last year’s winner and chairman of the judges Simon Jenkins said: “Ben is really setting the standard for writing about beer. His work is always interesting and informative – and his passion for the subject really shines through everything he writes.”

Other winners named at the event at the London Riverside Park Plaza included Mark Dredge for beer and food writing, Martyn Cornell in the online category for his blog ‘Zythophile’ and Marverine Cole, for her regional television work.

Pete Brown scooped the new award for corporate communications, Des de Moor picked up the beer and travel writing prize, and Adrian Tierney-Jones was named national journalist of the year. The Guild’s Brewer of the Year was named as Kernel Brewery’s Evin O’Riordain

Results in full:

Brewer of the Year 2011 - Evin O’Riordain, Kernel Brewery

Budweiser Budvar John White Travel Bursary - prize £1,000 plus trip to Czech Republic . Winner: Des de Moor

Shepherd Neame 1698 Award for Beer and Food Writing - prize £1,000. Winner: Mark Dredge

Thwaites Award for Best Corporate Communications - prize £1,000. Winner: Pete Brown

Brains SA Gold Award for Best Use of Online Media - £1,000 & £500. Winner: Martyn Cornell; Silver Award: Mark Charlwood

Adnams Award for Best Writing in Regional Media - prize £1,000 & £500. Winner: Marverine Cole; Silver Award: Gavin Aitchison

Fuller’s ESB Award for Best Writing for the Beer and Pub Trade - prize £1,000 & £500 . Winner: Ben McFarland: Silver Award: Glynn Davis

Molson Coors Award for Best Writing in National Media - prize £1,000 & £500 Winner: Adrian Tierney-Jones; Silver Award: Will Hawkes

The Michael Jackson Gold Award – Beer Writer of the Year 2011: Ben McFarland

Judges this year were: Simon Jenkins, winner of the 2010 Beer Writer of the Year title; Fiona Matthias, executive editor of The Sunday Telegraph; Martin Ross, journalist, writer and home brewer; Martin Kellaway, founder of Wharfebank Brewery in Leeds and Joanna Copestick, who has commissioned and published a number of books about beer.

Simon Jenkins added: "The exciting thing for myself and my fellow judges was seeing the sheer range of material which is being published about beer – whether in books, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and online."

"This reflects a fundamental change in Britain’s brewing industry, which has seen huge numbers of micro-brewers and craft brewers posing an increasing challenge to the dominance of the industry’s big boys. These brewers have brought hundreds of new beers to the market, and opened up to customers a vast new array of tastes, styles and experiences."

"These awards celebrate the very best in British beer writing. The scope, scale and variety of the work created by the winners is astonishing, and show that writing about our national drink is now being treated very seriously indeed."

On the Brewer of the Year Award given to Evin O’Riordain, British Guild of Beer Writers chairman Tim Hampson said: “Even though the Kernel brewery is not yet two years old, Evin O'Riordan and his team have created some of the most stunning beers in the country. If you're thinking about the London craft beer scene, just saying the phrase 'Craft Brewer' evokes images of this microbrewer working in his train arch brewery.

“The creative flair of O'Riordan with his passion for collaboration and generosity of spirit which has produced beers such as IPA Black, London Brick, Big Brick to name just three, speaks volumes about what is going on in the London craft beer scene and it's down to people like Evin.”

More than 230 journalists, brewers and pub operators attended the dinner at the London Riverside Park Plaza. The British Guild of Beer Writers was established in 1988 to help spread the word about beer and brewing and improve standards of beer writing in general. Today the Guild has more than 150 members – to find out more go to www.beerwriters.co.uk.

PICTURED: (l-r) Ben McFarland, Beer Writer of the Year 2011 and Simon Jenkins, chair of judges, British Guild of Beer Writers Annual Awards 2011

British Guild of Beer Writers www.beerwriters.co.uk

(EDITOR: The hearty congratulations of That's Food and Drink go to all concerned. Well done for helping to promote good, healthy British real ales!)

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Thursday 1 December 2011

This month, as we head toward Christmas, head toward Tossed, too!

Another week closer to Christmas, and as the weather is getting colder, things are heating up at Tossed, the high street healthier eating place.

If you are not over-sweating from over-shopping, you might want another way to warm yourself up over-lunch. Try a hot and warming soup, stew or curry, from the new Hot and Healthier range at Tossed. Soup is great for getting your veggies as well as being warm and comforting.

Starting at just 68 calories for a Skinny Minestrone, the Tossed soups are made from 100 percent natural ingredients. There is also Leek and Potato at 154 calories, a classic Tomato and Basil and the new Sweet Potato, Coconut & Coriander. They are around £3.00 for a full size, but they also come as ‘mini’, a great addition to the equally tasty and warming stews.

With a low GI carb base of Mixed Wild Rice, Wholewheat Noodles or Cous-cous, the Tossed version of Chicken Tikka Masala is hot stuff, as is the Chilli con Carne and the Sweet & Sour Chicken, with free-range meat from Gatacombe Farm in Devon.

The low GI carbs will make sure you have enough fuel to make it through the day, and at under 500 calories for any of the hot dishes, you will not compromise your diet, even at Christmas. All at under £5.00, they will not empty your purse either. ‘Grab and go’ has never been so good.

Grab a soup or a stew from Tossed in the West End and the City, at Westfield London and at Westfield Stratford City. www.tosseduk.com Twitter @tosseduk.com or www.Facebook.com/tosseduk